Blocking Google being eyed as a way to get people to pay for News Corp content

Rupert Murdoch's move to online users
to pay for content they read is infamous at this point. The
publishing impresario has some of the most popular newspapers in the
world under his News Corp umbrella.

Murdoch is also running
one of the few successful publications online that charges for access
-- The Wall Street Journal. The catch for Murdoch is that
there is a well known workaround for accessing WSJ content
online without having to pay or register with the publication --
Google. You can search the title of most any WSJ story that requires
a paid account with Google and find the complete article for
free.

Murdoch is now saying that he will remove
stories all together from Google's search index as a way to
encourage people to pay for content. Encourage here is a synonym for
force. Murdoch told Sky News Australia that the papers in his empire
including the Sun, Times, and WSJ would consider
blocking Google entirely once that fully enacted plans for charging
people to read stories.

Murdoch said, "I think we will
(block Google), but that's when we start charging. We have it already
with the Wall Street Journal. We have a wall, but it's not right to
the ceiling. You can get, usually, the first paragraph from any story
- but if you're not a paying subscriber to WSJ.com all you get is a
paragraph and a subscription form."

Murdoch continued
saying, "There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to
be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether... but we'll
take that slowly."

Murdoch had previously promised that
starting in 2010 charging
for the use of his websites would be enacted. He is backtracking
on that a bit and now says that he won’t promise that date will be
met.

Murdoch said, "The people who simply just pick up
everything and run with it – steal our stories, we say they steal
our stories - they just take them. That's Google, that's Microsoft,
that's Ask.com, a whole lot of people ... they shouldn't have had it
free all the time, and I think we've been asleep."

The
ill will between Murdoch and Google is building on the back of
significantly reduced traffic to MySpace. MySpace has a lucrative
search deal in place with Google that may be one of the reasons the
paid content work around has not been addressed before. With
significantly increased competition from Facebook pushing MySpace
into a second place spot in the social networking scene, MySpace has
missed traffic goals set by Google. The shortfall in traffic equates
to the potential for the loss of more than $100 million in income
from the Google search deal.

As Murdoch ramps up his schemes
to make money off the internet, Google CEO Eric Schmidt continues to
scoff
at Murdoch's plans. Schmidt has said in the past, "In
general these models (paid online content) have not worked for
general public consumption because there are enough free sources that
the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the
incremental value of quantity. So my guess is for niche and
specialist markets ... it will be possible to do it but I think it is
unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news."

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It's interesting how US's current president is trying to make the US a better country by making the health system Universal... and people complain.

Precisely the crappy private health system the US has is one of the things that makes the US more similar to countries with thriving money sacks like Kuwait, China and Arabia Saudi than first world countries with better quality of life. That and the death penalty. It's quite impressive to see such a technologically advanced country still have such medieval ways.

62% of bankruptcy in US families in 2008 were health related. It makes 1 million citizens go bankrupt every single year and kills 45.000 people that have no coverage.

The Twin Tower collapse killed 3.000 .The current crappy health system is killing 45.000 people A YEARAnd makes 1.000.000 people go bankrupt also every single year.

Those numbers seem like they correspond to an undeveloped country, not a first world country.

If the current health system doesn't seem f¡cked up enough... here are some other numbers that you probably ignore:

Countries like Spain spend 5 times LESS money per person yet has a Universal health coverage that delivers much better health outcomes such as a much lower infant mortality rate, a higher life expectancy and the highest organ donations and transplants in the world. All in a system where public and private hospitals coexist without any legal problems.

You should check "Jeff Goldsmith healthcare comparison" in YouTube to get some professional information about it and not some biased Fox News reports saying that the universal health system is crap, and then show UK statistics. Great work, Fox, put the numbers of one of the worst universal health system in planet earth to prove your point.I don't expect Obama's plan to go as well as Spain's, Slovenia's, Finland's, etc health systems from one day to another, but with years of work I'm sure that it will be totally worth it. I doubt that it'll end up being as crappy as UK's (I hope not).

You must not live in New York State. We have lots of programs. Actually hostage programs every time the politicians need more money they hold them hostage. WE have a budget deficit crisis so right away we will be forced to cut education funding or roads or something tangible. They never ever cut appointed jobs like staffing for the politicians themselves.

Don't get me wrong I think health care regulation is a good idea, I just don't want it held to my head every time they need a fund raiser like they do with schools and roads.

Social security is always broke when money needs to be found and the same with medicare.

Social security was sold as a solution to poor people and the middle class to retire now it is just a supplement. DO you really think that this will be any different in health care?

Even if you trust Obama, do you trust his successors and politicians in charge of this? Seriously?